Bus Plunge Genre

First of all the Nepal Bus Plunge was caused by the driver speeding. The Upazila (which is located here by the way) Bus Plunge's cause is unknown, citing only that the bus broke the railing on the bridge it was crossing and skidded into a canal. One can infer that the driver was probably not doing anything wrong... therefore the Bus Plunge would be un-newsworthy. So the focus chose to be on the actual accident. The focus of the Nepal story was on the amount of people killed and the fact that 11 people were still missing.

Also the Nepal bus actually did plunge. The Upazila bus only skidded. Big difference in the newsworthiness of the items! Also because one bus plunged, there were deaths. The skidding bus caused only injuries.

The Bus Plunge story is a really interesting "genre" of newswriting. I did not realize how popular it was to throw in a story like this into any newspaper/news site across the world. 10 bus plunge stories in less than a month-wow!

2 Comments

Jessie Krehlik said:

Wait, so you don't think the skidding bus was newsworthy at all? I don't think that it's any less newsworthy simply because no one died...remember "if it bleeds it leads?" Even though no one died, it's still an accident. Sure, more people would've covered the piece if someone had died, but I hate to think that all people really care about is the mortality rate.

No. I would not have covered this story. I would have went searching for one with more mayhem. As much as I would like to believe people don't want to read about carnage I think the fact of what sells contradicts that. Carnage sells. Mayhem sells. Plunging buses sell. Skidding buses...not so much.